Bring hemp back to Wisconsin: column

It's legal to buy and sell hemp goods. Why can't our farmers grow it?

6:08 PM,
Jun. 12, 2014

Written by

Jim Maas
For Gannett Central Wisconsin Media

Hemp is a variety of cannabis sativa that has been used by mankind to produce fibers and oils for thousands of years. Hemp was one of the first crops domestically cultivated, becoming a staple crop and the most traded commodity in the world, up until the middle of the last century, when the government banned it as part of its misguided war-on-drugs paranoia.

Today, according to the U.S. Congressional Resource Service, the United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop. Therefore, American companies that specialize in hempen goods are ...